Abstract
In 1974, the government of Pakistan set up a record label to dilute the monopoly of EMI and protect the interests of the country’s musicians and poets. As a producer of vinyl records, audio cassettes and VHS tapes, Shalimar proved to be an incredibly successful venture, handing out a 500% dividend to its shareholding artists in the very first year of operation. In creating Shalimar, the state indirectly agreed to the impossibility of fully constituting and protecting intellectual property within Pakistani cultural production. Thus, by collectively recognizing artists as an interest group, it attempted to recast their traditional sustenance model of courtly patronage into the financial apparatus of the liberal economic order. In this paper, I trace the background of Shalimar Recording Company’s formation within the context of media institution reform, evaluate its cooperative business model, and show how the company’s recording and production practices paved the way for the emergence of a massive black market of pirated media in the country. I particularly focus on a series of projects initiated by Shalimar to record complete recitations of the Holy Qur’an. In this regard, I inquire into the legal frameworks of intellectual property, theological concerns surrounding Muslim scripture, and the interplay of formal and informal media infrastructures in the Global South.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Piracy, Intellectual property, Media infrastructures, Business model
